FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT ZAK STARKEY - PAGE 3

"Hope I die before I get old. " Pete Townshend will never escape those fantastically fatalistic words he wrote - and Roger Daltrey first sang - nearly 50 years ago. There is no way around it: Pete Townshend is old, Roger Daltrey is old, the songs are old, nearly everything about the Who is old. If the Who's previous reunions have proved that "old" and "timeless" are not mutually exclusive, it's always been up to the surviving pair of Townshend and...

"WELL, that's that. She shot my son, and Truman murdered her, and so now I suppose we don't have to worry about that anymore," said high society's beloved Mrs. William Woodward -- known as "Elsie" -- back in the 1970s. WELL, DON'T you dare miss New York magazine's April 9 issue "Three Centuries of New York Scandal!" The social historian Steven Gaines interviewed me about "Bad Behavior in Boldface" and the upshot is, I don't think I managed to say much, but we had fun talking aspects of loyalty, cowardice, access and gossip writing of a kind that doesn't even exist these days.

Following is a summary of current entertainment news briefs. Actor Gordon-Levitt changes masks for "Dark Knight Rises" LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Joseph Gordon-Levitt has come a long way from his television days playing a disguised extraterrestrial stranded on Earth, harnessing a chameleon-like ability to inhabit a variety of roles in independent films and big-budget blockbusters. The actor, who gained fame on TV show "3rd Rock From the Sun," portrays Gotham police officer John Blake in Friday's "The Dark Knight Rises," the eagerly anticipated final installment of director Christopher Nolan's "Batman" trilogy.

Johnny Marr was only 23 when his first major band, one of the best England ever produced, fell apart. The Smiths, the Manchester quartet he had cofounded with Morrissey in 1982, released seven albums that changed the course of British rock. By 1987, it was all over, the quartet splintering in acrimony. "Even though I was very young, the decision to quit the Smiths was not impulsive," Marr says. "Because I had absolutely no idea what I was gonna do when I left, I had to consider the worst-case scenario, which was returning to obscurity.

On his new LP, "Acid Bubblegum," Graham Parker takes a slug from the Fountain of Youth and unleashes a swarm of songs buzzing with the kind of lyrical vitriol and R&B swagger that distinguished his earliest records. Backing Parker is the upstate New York punk-pop quartet the Figgs, whose recent "Banda Macho" record evokes everyone from the Ramones to AC/DC to the Kinks. Inspired meeting of the minds or catastrophic clash of generations? Either way it's an eminently intriguing pairing.

Hey, man: Looks like they're getting the band back together! Inc. has learned The Who will reunite for a private, charitable show here at House of Blues in November. The surviving original members of the band--Pete Townshend, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle--last played together in Chicago at the United Center in 1996, accompanied by a 12-piece band for the rock opera "Quadrophenia." No word yet on who will spell the late Keith Moon on drums, but Zak Starkey, son of ex-Beatle Ringo Starr, did a more than commendable job the last time The Who came to town.

By Blair R. Fischer for RedEye. BLAIR R. FISHER IS A REDEYE SPECIAL CONTRIBUTOR | June 20, 2005

Because the Gallagher brothers are more enamored by the John Lennon half of the Beatles writing team, it's somewhat ironic that Oasis and its anti-muse Paul McCartney now share the same anomaly: Neither sells records anymore, but both continue to sell out arenas. Although "Don't Believe the Truth," Oasis' sixth studio album, debuted at No. 12 on the Billboard chart when it dropped last month, the Britpop troupe is definitely not the juggernaut it once was. Still--whether it's the chance to hear "Wonderwall" again or see frontman Liam Gallagher storm off stage--fans in the U.S. are mad for Oasis.

It was a rare opportunity to glimpse the Who's past and its possible future on one stage Monday at the House of Blues. The Who may be half of what they once were, but they still pack a mighty wallop. That much was evident in the charity performance for Maryville Academy, as the venerable British duo of Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey soldiered on without fallen bandmates Keith Moon and John Entwistle. Opening was perhaps Townshend's most famous acolyte, Eddie Vedder, and his band, Pearl Jam. Of all the rock bands to emerge in the last decade, Pearl Jam is the one most closely patterned after the Who, and the Seattle quintet's devotion was palpable.

If you haven't heard the name Willy DeVille in a while, that's understandable. Since emerging from New York's new wave scene of the late '70s as the leader of Mink DeVille, best known for such soulful, retro-sounding tunes as "Cadillac Walk" and "Mixed Up, Shook Up Girl," DeVille's profile has been much larger in Europe than in the U.S. In fact, of his last three albums, only "Backstreets of Desire," which was just released on Rhino Records' "Forward"...

When secular pop music criticism talks about a roots revival, as it has often done in the last few years, the genre most often absent from the discussion is exactly the one you would connect with a word like "revival." Though a good Mississippi River's worth of ink has flowed over blues, neo-traditional country, back-to-basics rock, new folk and the neo-bop jazz pack, only a little creek has trickled out about gospel and much of that has been devoted to artists who are revolutionizing the music, not revisiting its past glories.